001all right thank you all for being here this is the only time we actually get a crowd both at home and and live but um anyway um what time we got 5 something 51 501 called finance committee meeting to order um agenda item two approved the minutes from our November 7th 2023 meeting in the agenda there was a link to those draft minutes and Jen thank you for filling in as clerk for that meeting um and get in and post it in draft form comments questions on those minutes no okay I'll make a motion that we approve those minutes second second but we'll call it John all in favor all right those minutes are approved um so any public comment I don't see see Department Representatives but no public um so with that I'm going
002to before we get into the the budget presentations Michael um I think you know and I'm going to maybe just inform the committee so as of now we have two vacancies on the committee so um I think you know Ryan you know is is resigning and I guess I want to publicly thank even though he's not here for his time on the committee I was reflecting back I think he recruited me to this and you know I'm coming up on 10 years on this committee so he was likely just a bit longer so um you know certainly thank Ryan for his time on the committee and everything he has um you know given to the town and and to this committee I think he he was a he was a as good questions and um
003you know always a just a different voice right so and then I received notice yesterday and I think I don't know if she's notified um Adam but aswe is going to resign as well so Shantal um emailed me on the train ride home that she was sick today I'm like I hope everyone else shows up otherwise we have to postpone this meeting so um but yes so I think you know for the members and anyone listening at home you know obviously with with two vacancies doesn't leave a lot of room to have a quorum of four people so U be great to fill those as as quickly as we can and um I think you folks know but for anyone else listening the process is would be to go to the town website grab a
004talent Bank form and U complete that and submit it to the town and um the process is that our town moderator you know would review those and appoint a member to the finance committee so um and I told Shantel oh well do some recruiting so so um but anyway yeah so we're we're down to um to five members now so anyway with that I guess we'll move into the budget Michael and I don't know how you want to start this but um we was just start with an overall presentation okay and then we'll move into the departmental presentations if that uh if that pleases the the committee yeah that works and while I'm pulling this up I I too want to Echo your thoughts about Ryan and aween and their service um Ryan would would
005always ask questions and um you know he did he did what he was supposed to do which is ask questions made us think made us go back and and sharpen our pencils just like the rest of the committee does and make sure that we have good answers uh for the things that we were asking for so uh again kudos to them for for their work so yep so just for I think everybody here knows but for those watching at home that might not know my name is Michael Herbert I'm the town manager here uh I'm also accompanied here with our finance director uh Britney I Capon as well as members of our uh police department our fire department and DPW and uh tonight we're just going to go over uh the general fund budget for
006fiscal year 2025 and um I'll give you a general overview and talk about give you basically a context um for the budget discussions this year and then our departments will will come in and give you a little bit more detail and drill down a little bit more on their departmental budgets so first um I just want to let everybody know this is going to be a challenging year and um so this goals page is not as robust as I would like to have it usually um it's it's pretty sparse this year but it's pretty important so you know the first goal that we have this year is to even even though we're in a tough budget year we want to maintain existing services so we're not at a place where we can cut Services uh
007without having a major impact to the public and the people that we serve um second yes if we have an opportunity and it's affordable we will look at strategically adding to Services if it makes sense again I think once you see the number here you'll see kind of the challenge that we're we're faced with but um I just want to say that that uh we're keeping an open mind to that third what we're committing to doing this year is to do it without an override um you know that's a discussion that we've been having a lot more recently um in terms of you know is this something that we need to look at as a community in order to maintain services and I will say that for this year we don't have to look at
008an override however I will just put it straight out there we are in some ways just kicking the can down the road um our our budget is such that it's exceeding our revenues and so we're actually going to be looking at probably some one-time revenues to make the budget work this year and then finally uh something that I'm very proud of and I know our departments are very proud of and I think the finance committee should be very proud of as well is to keep Ashland one of the best values in Metro West today and that's based on objective metrics that's I mean obviously I'm going to say that because I'm proud of the work that we do but I think it's important to have objective data to back it up um I used to
009be a data analyst that was my entry into municipal government so it's something I'm still familiar with and see a lot of value in I also just want to remind everybody that we're our staff in addition to the services we're we're still supporting a number of capital projects and you you know everybody thinks of the public safety building and the minda school and yes there are a few loose ends that were tight uh that were having to tie up with those two projects but for the most part they're done that being said we have all of these other projects that we are still working on namely downtown we got to get those poles down or else it won't be complete Pawn Street 126 that still has about a Year's worth of work the Warren District
010which accompanies ACC companies the the hall house as well as the Warren Barn that still has some work left to be done um the hall house was finished uh late last year but the waren barn is still incomplete or actually incomplete doesn't exist anymore we're looking at building a replica of that uh the Valentine property we just had uh we just finished up well we still have a couple loose ends with the barn itself but for the most part that is finished and and last week we actually had a forum on the future use of the Valentine property and what that might look like and and to get some feedback on that as well we've got another phase of the Riverwalk that we're we're looking at which is the direct connection between the train station
011and the existing Riverwalk that we have the quiet zone is still uh on our list which is basically making improvements at the atg grade Crossings on Cherry Street and Main Street uh in order to have it such that the the trains are not required to blow their whistles now I just want to caution and temper everybody's expectations that doesn't mean they they won't blow the whistles it's just they don't have to um Cadillac paint not too long ago the select board got a presentation on turning that into the Ashland Arboretum Ed har was uh very much involved with that and we're looking forward to the springtime and and moving moving forward for with that a lot of the uh the trails and everything have already been been done we're just looking now at some plantings
012and and more of the vegetation uh stage or phase of things uh next is it's not really a capital project but it's going to inform all of our capital projects moving forward and it is a big project and a big lift in and of itself and that's the comprehensive plan uh or what we call or what you could call a master plan for the town and this is an initiative that's going to take uh well we started last June actually we started a little bit before that but we're now in the public engagement phase and so I want to just use this as an opportunity for uh to let people know that if you're interested in the future development of this town and what kind of services we provide and what kind of services that
013you'd like to see the comprehensive plan is the place to basically make your voice heard so there's going to be surveys there's going to be focus group type meetings that basically anybody can participate in we have some Bridge work that we need to do um just like all cities and towns in the Commonwealth our bridges are are falling into disrepair the upper Charles Trail is has moved up to be a priority project for the town and that's the uh multimotor path that connects the towns of Hopkinson and Sherburn through Ashland and then finally we're working on a dog park at uh or off of Memorial drive so these are some of the existing Capital initiatives that we're going to try to support this year I'll just give you a high level overview of some of
014our F FY 25 budget Staffing requests uh so we have a senior clerk position in the town clerk's office um that position is necessary just because of the elections that are coming up just things like mail-in ballots and stuff like that I mean it's a great idea and it certainly expands voting access for people but in essence it's an unfunded mandate for uh for cities and towns and so we we we have a lot of trouble accommodating those uh those mandates we have a senior accountant position in the accounting department um Britney is there anything special you want to say about that position okay that's a no uh it stands on its own one from last year yes same one from last year that you didn't fill right correct yeah so um also in the
015police department we're looking at three positions one being a dis dispatcher supervisor um to oversee our uh dispatch operations this past year we recently essentially combined uh dispatch operations we previously had separate fire and police dispatch units uh those have been combined moving into the new facility and then the I I don't want to call it an addition of two Patrol officers last year if you recall we did not fund two officers because we wanted to make room for um you know compensation that was adjusted for getting out of Civil Service uh and so the commitment I made to the department at that point in time was that uh I would definitely put those back in for fy2 additionally we're looking at for firefighters um the as you will hear from the chief the calls
016for service um especially medical calls have increased significantly and he's like I said he's going to have more in-depth data on that um for our Public Safety departments in general we're looking at covering more you know with overtime and uh shift differentials and and things of that nature so we are um requesting 246,000 for that um in our library we're looking at a couple of things so first uh two Library assistants two additional library assistant positions then also increasing hours of some of our existing staff which would bring them up from part-time well it wouldn't bring them from part-time to full-time it would make them uh go from non-benefited to benefited positions uh I think you all know the great work that Mina does at the library and all the programs that she runs and
017this is something that she felt needed to continue that uh number nine uh is Parks and recck Staffing which you'll hear more about from Doug and Becca um we've been talking about the fields for years and how it's you know considering the resources that we have in DPW to maintain it we definitely need to have a dedicated resource for our athletic fields and so this begins that conversation and starts to um budgetarily address that concern in need looking at also increasing the hours of our part-time conservation assistant now we actually funded the conservation assistant position last year she's been an excellent addition to uh our town staff and we're looking at increasing her hours this year um the program coordinator position in the Departments of prevention and Human Services uh we are losing some grant
018funding so we need to find a way to make up that grant funding and so that's what you see here and then I've put $275,000 again in salary the salary contingency line so we have four unions that we will be bargaining with this year uh we also have non-union employees that we have to think about and I can just tell you that the the market for municipal workers across the board um is getting hotter and hotter meaning you know salaries are going up and up in order to retain to attract and retain qualified Personnel um we're going to have to look at keeping Pace with our surrounding communities we also have some non-personnel requests uh number one really if you look at Human Resources uh increased utilization of our financial system which is called munis
019um so we would be looking at adding on electronic um onboarding for employees that come on also a new time attendance model as well as what they call Tyler's content manager so we're the hope and the desire and what we think will happen here is that if we make this investment of $330,000 we will actually reap rewards in terms of efficiencies on a day-to-day operational basis um people you won't have to use as much paper um people won't have to spend as much time chasing signatures chasing spread chasing spreadsheets and time sheets Etc um also this year we're looking at adding $110,000 to uh our conservation department and that's for the treatment of was and pond uh wasum as most of you know is uh on the Eastern side of town and it borders Framingham
020we we essentially share the the pond or or lake with Framingham and so that needs to be treated for invasive species and then finally just in general we're looking at increased cost and supplies of over $400,000 and that includes everything from contracted services all the way down to dues and subscriptions um you see electricity on here I'll get a little bit more in depth into that yeah question before you so you talk about the last two non-personnel and Personnel requests are those actually in the budget now or those kind of yes the budget figure I will present to you includes all of these so Balan budget it's not balanced not balanced okay it's it's not balanced Scott Britney's like no no we're a little bit out of balance let's put it that way okay we're
021just teasing you to to give you uh basically a preview of everything that you could get if if we did have a balanced budget um but just getting back to utility expenses uh so uh we had to renegotiate our contract this year for because our current contract with an electricity supplier actually expired we had had a four-year agreement we had an incredible rate of a of nine cents um unfortunately all all parties must end at some point and so that train stopped for us uh late last year and so we had to go out to bid and so we actually got a really good price compared to what you see in the market of 12 cents um and there's actually a bit of a premium uh attached to that because if you recall uh back
022in t town meeting in May of 2023 town meeting passed uh a law bylaw which required all of our Municipal energy use to be sourced from renewable energy so there's a bit of a a premium attached to that as well um other than that we're looking at some really really big increases in our fixed costs things that we really have no control over but you'll see is having a very very big impact on our budget our retirement assessment went up 6.5% um or $258,000 Britney nor nor it's what four 4% yeah four to five four to five yeah but you know 6.5 it's a little bit more than what we were expecting but the big one the big one has been the health insurance um Britney was estimating 6 to 7% Max um we got
023word from the GIC that it's actually going to be 8 to 11% um and as you know that's that's a big big number number already and so when you start adding double digit percentage increases to that it just becomes an even bigger number and becomes just squeezes other parts of the budget that's just what happens um and our other insurance actually increased significantly as well so we had a revaluation of our properties um just like you experienced probably a little bit of shock when you opened your tax bill and you probably bad shock when you looked at your tax bill and then hopefully good shock when you saw valuation you'll see that valuations uh in the Pro in the town are going up uh across the board and uh that's a good thing that means
024ashlin's becoming more desirable uh uh more people are wanting to move in there and so there therefore the values are being raised uh and then obviously we're adding two substantial new buildings um being the public safety building in the MZ school so is everybody ready to get into the big overview everybody good I I'll start with revenues first we'll start with revenues um so our prior year Levy um is going to be 53 million um you add the 2% increase 2 and a half% increase on that that's 1.3 um we have an anemic New Growth number of 475,000 and um I have said this for the last few years um well even more than the last few years as as we adopted this approach to basically thwart I don't think there's a better word for
025it thwart development um we're seeing that impact on our new growth numbers so as we have bought property you know that's a double Financial hit on us in the sense that we have to expend money to purchase that and acquire that property but at the same time we're Lo we have opportunity costs associated with the future development of that property so once we buy it and it comes off the tax rules we no longer get tax revenue from that property um and there's no building that happens on those properties which a lot of people will cheer and say yes yay that's a that's a good thing the thing is is that Massachusetts has structured you know Municipal Finance so that basically you have to keep building in order to maintain services or you have to
026pass overrides um that's why Sherburn you see is a nice bucolic 2 acre per a lot zoning and a tax bill of $166,000 you know compared to to where we are um we do have some excluded debt um actually that looks like it's going down but that's only because we're subtracting the 750 that we had um carved out uh out of the existing Levy to offset the public safety building so that's why you see that decrease there and so we have an allowable Levy limit of 58 million um getting to our state aid numbers uh we God we I mean Britney is usually very very conservative um on our state aid numbers but uh we really got caught off guard this year by the governor's budget which had um only a 76. 78% increase in
027chapter 78 I mean like a little less than $90,000 um that I I call New Growth anemic I mean this is this is anemic and um I could use a few other descriptive words for it as well um but uh that's probably the highlight of state aid right now so just to let everybody know that's the governor's numbers um both uh branches of the legislature need to meet and go through their own budget process hopefully that number gets increased during that that process and we will see that figure um figure Rise um total state aid in general is going up uh you know $125,000 so out of 13.5 million that's all it's going to go up um local receipts we have you know a moderate modest growth of 4.5% um about $200,000 uh as you
028can see here we are not planning at this point in time to have any transfers in from the spe uh special education stabilization fund and uh basically after you total all the other funds and you know you add those to what I had talked about before um we get a revenue figure of 78 million just a little over 78 million or 1.29% Okay so let's move to the expenses now focus on the top here everybody the top top figures um you can see with all of the general government requests um our Collective departmental budgets are going up 12.42% um you know to $15.3 million we have the school department going up our standard 3.75% um I should tell you and warn you that um that is probably not where the school department is going to
029land but uh that is the number that we're using right now until we hear otherwise um we do have non-excluded Debt Service going down which is good um but you can see that big benefits and insurance number um totaling 727 th000 in terms of an increase um and then if you factor everything in together we have expenses of $8,800 th000 which represents a $2.7 million deficit so any questions questions how do we close that how do we close so I don't want everybody to freak out um believe it or not in we were in almost the exact same situation at this point last year now what came and kind of saved us last year was a big Hefty increase in chapter 78 um which I'm not even if it goes up through the legislative process
030it's not going to go up that much I think it's safe to say so Britney and I have already started talking and looking at different uh different options that we could utilize um and we will put together like a more comprehensive package um looking at reducing the departmental requests we'll get a little bit more Fidelity into what the school Department's going to request um we're still going to look at ways that we could potentially reduce our fix costs although um we might be out of options there and uh then we will look at utilizing either our revolving funds or onetime revenues to probably close this Gap so that is where uh that is where we are Mich can you just expand on onetime revenues a little bit more specifically what we have in mind there
031um well there's I mean the the easiest one to look at is the stabilization fund um but there's some other things that we're looking at I mean if we potentially have some an overlay Surplus that we could potentially tap into um we've actually generated some solar credits uh more than we can use that we can potentially tap into um and utilize those um and then like I said reducing some of the requests that we have as well so those are those are kind of the the horses we're looking at riding into this Sunset so the request the list that you showed before that's kind of the wish list if you will yeah it's the it's the wish list um but like I said at the very beginning of that second slide I mean if there's
032opportunities where we can add services and it makes sense um we'll look at doing that in some cases we might be able to accomplish some of these goals without going to the general fund and utilizing grants potentially um or you know things like that to uh to be able to accomplish that goal without necessarily hitting the general fund can you scroll back through the slides for a second Cas get certified there okay and then forward again did you give I guess I was trying to figure out the 727 is that does that include s of the benefits line item like from what you discussed does that include sort of the retirement assessment do that include the health insurance yes so that appears there so includes retirement includes health insurance and includes the other insurance as
033well okay the red is there anything you wanted to add there we go there we go so if there's confusion with the the line item the benefits and insurance it's only going up 5% or 6% the line item I think that's what's causing you confusion so we were able to realize some Savings in our other insurance lines so workers compensation we were able to reduce um over 100,000 unemployment and then we also had some savings last year in health insurance so it didn't go up as much so we were able to to take out some of that savings but we're still going to see a substantial increase this year so the net increase in that one line item is is showing a little okay the five six% and not the full 8 n% okay perfect
034I was wondering if it was showing up somewhere else so that explains it Bry while while you're up there are the are our unfunded benefits numbers in that as well or is that a separate line item which unfunded benefits the uh the acronym is escaping me um OPB OPB thank so the yeah we have an OPB line in the health insurance budget yeah so that has increased about 50,000 but we are still including that into and factoring that into our health insurance budget okay thank you welcome um and then it it just I mean I mentioned this before this is just a a look at the new growth number and you see how it had reached a peak of um 1 Point almost $1.3 million um in 2019 and as the results of that Slow
035Grow policy have come into effect you've seen it steadily decline um and then you know I do just this is my favorite slide you know the one that's coming up um which is expenditures per capita I can't Hammer this home enough you know because I think so everybody for those at home that don't understand what this is so we're looking at objective measurements to try to get to look at efficiency and Effectiveness and so obviously you can't compare budgets across towns because the the city of Framingham is going to have an extensively large budget compared to a town like Ashland um which is going to have a substantially larger budget than some of these smaller towns um like Holliston so how do you get an accurate measure of your efficiency well the most accepted measure
036is to divide your budget by your the number of people living in your town and you get an expenditures per capita figure and so that normalizes things so you're able to compare across the different communities where you stand and you know obviously we're third from the bottom and uh there's quite a few communities here in the region um but and it's not just you know it's not just the Sherburn of the world or the waylands it's you know marbor Northborough so it runs the gamut in terms of wealth let's put it that way but um you know people everybody has to understand like so Ashland is competing for the same people to work in our Municipal ranks and also our school ranks as well so we're competing for the same people we're buying the same
037Services you know an asphalt price is probably going to be very very similar uh in another town as it is what we what we're paying for so we're when you're able to do things efficien efficiently like this it should give confidence that you know the money is being spent wisely um because again we're we're paying the same thing as everybody else um we're just doing it better let's put it that way so do I sorry go ahead okay um do I recall that we add into this chart EXT other fees yes this includes Enterprise funds as well that was going to be my question okay um and that's the presentation you have any any questions in general or any questions on what I presented be happy to answer them not right now but thanks for
038the good news oh you're welcome got like I said I don't want people to freak out we we've been in this position before and we figured out how to make it work but you mentioned it like the Commonwealth last year they had a surplus and they're trying to figure out what to do with it this budget situation doesn't look too good on their end no no so that they find a way to keep spending Scott way got last year you're not going to get this year I don't think so I agree I agree um so so that being said I um believe the first presentation we have here is the police department um do you want to just segue directly into the departmental budgets any questions to Michael no all right let's do it good
039thanks and uh so I'm pleased to introduce deputy chief Michael ventula here who's going to go over the um police dep Department budget all right well he took my first line out of my presentation my name is Mikael CH the deputy chief uh for the Department here in Ashland in case anybody doesn't know me um and Michael touched in his presentation on our three big ass you know those two officers and dispatch supervisor but I'm going to go into some more detail um about the why um and what the Department's facing currently um so the again for those of you who know know me my name is Mike J the deputy chief here um and thank you all for having me tonight to present to you our fiscal year 25 budget request and as you
040know the Asal Police Department is a 24-hour day 7-Day week operation responsible for the protection of life and property within the borders of the town of Ashlin men and women who make up that department are dedicated professionals um both sworn and civilian alike a modern police officer is more than just an enforcer of the law there are medical mental health responders peacekeepers caretakers and more running an organization such as the Ash police department requires strong Community relationship and support and I thank you for your support tonight as we look forward to fiscal year 25 so the organizational chart shown here for the action Police Department it represents our current deployment of personnel as well as our goals as we work towards becoming fully staffed in this chart here the blue represents funded and filled sworn
041positions the yellow are are funded but unfilled sworn positions and the rep represents our reacquiring or our new positions for fiscal year 25 as Michael mentioned our fiscal year 25 budget represents requiring two Patrol positions um that were initially budgeted in fisc year 24 but absorbed as part of that agreement for leaving Civil Service um and also you see up in the top right hand corner that uh our new dispatch supervisor position so currently we're budgeted for 27 sworn officers eight full-time dispatchers one executive assistant and one records Clerk however we are currently operating with only 22 sworn officers and working diligently to fill those positions we've also recently taken on eight new civilian traffic constables for a total of 16 in that organization chart you can see we have one full-time specialty officer she
042works as our police prosecutor and our Evidence Officer she works with the town social worker JDP commiss and Community Services Department she's part of the hoarding task force does follow-up work with Elders Youth and other vulnerable population and sits on the middle sex DA's high-risk domestic domestic violence team okay so Staffing all of our asss are around for the most part are around Staffing so I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about that Staffing is the number one internal struggle for the police department law enforcement in general quing the Department of Justice police departments Nationwide are grappling with a historic crisis in recruiting retaining qualified officers ashin is not alone Recruitment and Retention in law enforcement is not what it was like 20 years ago when I joined departments now compete on
043salary benefits and incentives in order to attract and retain qualified Personnel our current Staffing level requires majority of our prol ship Patrol ships to run at minimum Staffing this requires coverage on overtime when someone is in need of time off for family or other commitments law enforcement has been become increasingly aware of the strain that forced overtime extended to of Duty plac on an officer's mental and mental mental and physical well-being with those Patrol shifts running at minimum Staffing it does not allow for concentrator or what we call directed Patrol to address specific citizens concerns traffic enforcement and education remains one of the most pressing issues in law enforcement in both large and small communities our Specialties are operating at part-time investigations such as the ongoing uh ring of stolen Motor Vehicles or more recently
044um the solved arm robbery must be investigated on overtime again extending the officer's hours further we've been unable to staff a full-time school resource officer for many years our school resource officer currently spends time with the schools again on overtime or when call volume allows to step away from his Patrol duties through dedication and hard work of the men and women of the action Police Department they' have managed to maintain a high level of professional response with our staffing issues seemingly going unnoticed by the community however this is not sustainable ensuring that our Personnel are properly compensated and increasing our staffing levels back to 29 sworn by methods of aggressively working to recruit and retain qualified dedicated law enforcement professionals we will EAS The Strain on our officers and their families by minimizing am of
045overtime required and extra duty hours we will be able to fully staff our specialty positions work closer with the schools and the students to the level they deserve and be able to dedicate fulltime detectives to thoroughly and effectively investigate reported crime against our community we will also be able to dedicate officers mainly during our day and evening shifts as traffic enforcement with the sole purpose being to address the concerns residents and educate the public in traffic safety okay so that's kind of all the bad that's going on but here's a little bit of the good during fiscal year 24 as was mentioned the town was successful in negotiating with the Union to exit civil service we were then fortunate enough to receive Town support at special election and we are now a non- civil service
046department this has opened up new and exciting exited opportunities in regards to recruitment a few months ago we partnered with a company called get badged to assist us in testing recruiting and hiring additional staff get badge also assists in getting as the as police department I'll say out there marketing our department to qualify candidates and letting them know we're out of civil service and we're ready to hire I am happy to report that we are seeing a steady amount of resumés and applications from entry-level applicants who have been tested and vetted through get badged we have received several lateral officer applications which would not have been an option had we still been in civil service we were actively conducting background investigations on several potential hires we have one student officer currently in the academy and
047our first lateral officer who came to us through get badge joins the department on the 20th so I'm confident that with your support with the town support that we can fill our remaining vacancies and continue to build our Department to the highest level okay so our requested increases are based off our requests from last year I should say that because sometimes the numbers look a little different but obviously our biggest increas is in Personnel Services with those three positions so I'll start by re reviewing that largest area growth growth which you can see is approximately uh by our figures $156,000 in our proposed our requested budget line 511 13 that covers all of our swarm Patrol officers and Specialty officers so in that line item we have our contractual increases again for as U part
048of Le negotiating leaving civil service we also had seven several positions replaced with new officers at lower hourly rates due to promotion or resignation and this is where those two reacquired positions from fiscal year 24 um are found so even with those positions we see in that particular line item um a degree a decrease in the overall requested amount line 51110 I think I might have had too many ones in there but uh covers the Command Staff including the the chief of police the deputy chief lieutenants and sergeants so again we see contractual increases and also uh an increase to maintain an appropriate salary separation between ranks Deputy Chief's position and and open Lieutenant's position were filled with sergeants and those Sergeant positions were then back and we're then filled with two Patrol officers who
049were promoted line 51120 this includes our Public Safety dispatchers executive assistant records Clerk crossing guards and animal control all those positions including the executive assistant records Clerk rossing guard and our full-time anal control did see um an annual pay increase as determined by the town and that's reflected there as for dispatch Communications Union Su Union successfully negotiated their first contract with the town with that again came contractual pay increases which were reflected in this year's budget currently we employ eight full-time dispatchers now in our initial 5 year 24 budget request that did include a ninth position that position was absorbed when the union negotiated for 12-h hour schedule running 4 days on and four days off our fiscal year 25 request is that that position be reinstated as the dispatch supervisor and this was touched
050on a little bit but in 2023 we successfully combined our police fire and EMS dispatch operations into a CO one cohesive division which falls under the compan and control of the police department currently the public safety Communications division again is staffed by eight full-time but also four per DM employees the Communication Center runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week and is staffed during all of that time with a minimum of two certified e911 Communications professionals currently there is no full-time direct supervision of the communications division up until recently I was actually in that role I can attest to the time and effort and energy that it takes currently Sergeant rodkey who's actually in the uh audience with us today has taken responsibility and oversees operations of the communications division on a part-time and
051overtime basis I can't stress enough that Public Safety Communications is a specialized position requiring very specific training knowledge and mastering of several complex systems Public Safety Division comprised of 12 employees running 24 hours a day requires full-time direct supervision and Leadership to maintain the highest level of service to the community the dispatch supervisor would work under the direct supervision of the police administrative Lieutenant with with guidance of course from both from both police and fire departments they would supervise all Public Safety dispatches in the performance of call answering dispatching and all other operational duties within the communications center to ensure that call taking and dispatches services are performed effectively they would ensure compliance with both police and fire department policies as well as the policies of the communications division itself the dispatch supervisor would be
052available to serve in the role as a public safety dispatcher on a regular basis should there need uh arise in support of Brakes Training relief Peak load conditions emergencies and special occurrences such as the marathon other responsibilities of a dispatch supervisor would include but are not limited to scheduling of course processing time off requests and just overall ensuring continuity of operations at all times which is no easy feed I can tell you quality control both in radio records C entries 911 calls and they would counsel and correct Personnel on those quality control issues they would work with both the police department and the fire department liaison to ensure training meets or exceeds their needs and expectations they would act as a 911 and peap coordinator with the state they will be responsible to apply for
053and manage all of our state and i911 grants they would coordinate and schedule ongoing required 911 training so this new position was calculated and requested at 9% above our TOP Step dispatch rate to again maintain an appropriate separation between rank good news is there is an annual support incentive grant that we are currently awarded to the Ashen to the Ashen Police Department through State 91 the amount of approximately $56,000 that could be utilized to assist in supporting this new position which is um expected to be around $667,000 all right any questions on any of that I know that was a lot of information okay how many years would that Grant uh cover salary for it's it's uh offered annually sir we we receive it every year okay thanks yep okay so other Personnel Services kind
054of just group those together um lines 51310 through 5182 again as a result of our contractual increases these line items show the subsequent overtime holiday sick training education other expenses the expenses to that time has also increased I picked out a couple of of the larger line items um you see 51420 the holiday pay um had a larger increase and part of that wasn't due obviously again contractual increases but also um we had to add some hours to that with the dispatches going from an 8 hour to a 12-h hour shift um it just increased the amount of hours and U their overall holidays paid increase so that that um was was partly a reason why we saw a little bit more of an increase in that one line item just quick May pause here
055just want to make sure we're following the columns here oh yes I apologize so the left to right yeah left to right but your your far right is going to be the difference the next one in is fiscal year 25 and the next one was fiscal year 24 going back and so forth okay my apologies I didn't put the headers on there okay okay um any again uh so let's see five line 51 441 the Quinn bill um we do see a presented increase in that um and actually when I we were reviewing the fisc year 25 budget we realized that there was an officer being paid the Quinn bill that hadn't been reflected in our previous request but they are being paid so it is showing an increase but we've already we're already paying
056that so all right getting outside of personnel um our other bigger line item increase is in um computer software hardware and maintenance um and that's under uh 52420 um that line shows a requested increase of about $15,000 a little bit into that first we've seen an increase um in the cost of our current systems our major increase being our um IMC system which covers our records management computerated dispatch um kind of the backbone of everything we do we're also seeing an increase in our payroll scheduling systems DTS things like that um as we continue to settle into our new state-of-the-art Public Safety complex that the town was uh provided us we decided to bring begin the grueling but rewarding task of becoming an accredited Department this will ensure that our policies and procedures are up
057to date that our training and practices are consistent with the law and Industry best practices as well as identify the town against legal liability so new in 20 in 2023 we partnered with power DMS for accreditation management policy compliance training and performance evaluations power DMS has partnered with the Massachusetts police accreditation commission is actually a required component of the accreditation process with all the advancements and changes with law enforcement profession and the world we are obviously very much in need of accreditation being a top priority so that system represents about an $8,000 increase in this line item and that's all that I have again I thank you for let for taking time for me to present to you tonight this budget requ Quest it not only represents our financial plan but um it is a
058reflection of our priorities values and aspirations and trying to use Service as a road map uh in to guide us in making informed decisions for the benefit of the department and the community so thank you sure questions for me I just maybe for me I just wanted to make sure I got all the the people right here so back to the original org chart with the colors yeah so the yellow was the vacant but not filled or funded but not filled funded but not filled yes sir um the blue is the funded and filled positions y uh the gray positions are our non-s sworn personnel gotcha and the red is the the new and the red is is there our three new positions yes um or reacquired as as I like to say um it
059sounds a less little less harsh that way um but yeah and again including in that under the administrative Lieutenant we have our 16 traffic constables and I just grouped under the dispat you have your eight full-time dispatchers four PDM dispatchers under the dispatch supervisor okay so so with the recruiting efforts that you talked about and these five unfunded or sorry funded but not filled positions I guess when do you anticipate those being funded or filled I should say so you talking about the yellow positions yes well so again so we have we're doing pretty well okay uh we have one uh student officer in the academy right now we have uh another um potential that um new hire that signed a uh conditional offer with us that should start in April okay uh we have
060our lateral officer starting um on the 20th and we are doing background checks on two other lateral officers right now so we're we're doing well um I'm I'm happy to see you know but we are it's negotiations it's not like I said it's not like what I saw 20 years ago yeah I hear um these officers have many options as Mr Herbert alluded to you know we're competing with every town um so we we're doing our best to to make ashin somewhere they want to be and and stay um and make a career so we talked about that quite sorry quite a bit last year I think about the recruiting troubles and things like that with u the chief and it sounds like at least that's you know looking up a little bit nothing nothing
061is is a 100% fix right um but I will say that the move from civil service has just opened up different paths different Avenues and we're able you know law enforcement is aligning itself a little bit more with the private sector as far as our hiring recruitment strategies it wasn't like that before you got a job and you were happy about it and that and that was it you know um so having that flexibility you know obviously working within guidelines and and making sure everybody's vetted properly um has definitely opened up some some new avenues for us thanks thanks sorry no I was just trying to clarify so the the the one that's in the academy and the lateral are they sort of already blue on here no they're not they're not blue because so
062there they fill they're filling the yellows there there some of the yellows yes okay yes um it's just they're not sworn in on the road yet so they we they weren't counted as as filled fair enough so could you go to the slide that shows the account line item for uh FY 24 versus FY 25 salaries please thanks and it says difference fy2 and again remember as was pointed out to me we we're operating on our requested from fiscal year 24 to fiscal year at 25 so and it says here even with the two required reacquired positions yes that so that's the 51130 you see there's a negative $113,000 difference in that line item so it's just the overall is on top and then I just broke it down into the three different sections that
063one particular section saw a decrease and that was mainly as I stated due to the fact that we had we've had senior officers unfortunately leave that were filled with lower paid positions okay are being filled with lower Bay positions understood so does that fy2 is that what the ask of the two the three additional positions included yes and and we we see because of the attrition you've experienced yes okay okay and that 3151 Michael is in your budget again this is our requested or in your it's in what you just showed us yeah right okay it's good but it's still requested 24 over 25 not actual 24 yeah right down we had those in there for requested do do you remember where did we end up last year Michael the actual actual budget about $500,000
064less less than that okay okay that did I believe get increased a little bit with the moving of the sil service what 2 something like that is okay that's yeah thank you that's why I felt a little okay gotcha all right that with me I think so great job thank you so much thank you thank you appreciate your time that you too all right we'll have H have Chief Roby all right there you go Chief thank you thank you um Chief Roby ashin fire department uh the fiscal 25 budget just to give you an overview of where the department is today so right now our staffing is a chief a deputy chief a captain who's in charge of training and maintenance he's so the three of us all work days the rest of the department
065is shift which consists of five firefighters and one liutenant so a total of 27 uniform firefighters uh just some of the highlights of the pitches up there that is the whole department photo from last year um the dedication of the public safety building which we are honored to be in today and thank the town for the support uh the middle picture there is our newest recruit graduating from the fire academy Thomas Kirk and then also to uh Lieutenant duer up there he got a citation from the State Fire Marshal this past year for a rescue unfortunately it was a fail fire but it occurred in Hopkin in but he was assisted in getting one of the residents out so our calls where are we today uh this is 22 verse 23 calendar year so we're
066up uh we did 28 10 and 23 22 we did uh 2747 fire calls are up a little bit uh they they jump around I I know people look at that number that that many houses burned no that's not all house fires I mean if you looked at an average house fires are probably 10 to 15 for what I would call a real house fire that most people relate to a lot of those fires are kitchen stoves uh medical responses definitely are our biggest impact as you can see we did uh 1,887 medical responses last year and transported 1,448 patients again going over the pictures there it's just some of the things we've we've done over the past year uh Deputy Moran doing a fire prevention program she's done a lot of Outreach with the
067uh class classes in the town uh the second picture there is a fire we had a kitchen fire so we're just venting third photo is training that we do in house again next picture would be another fire we at assisting the residents displ you know who get displaced helping them out of the house what they're going to do and that's followed by a photo that we assisted in whing at a big fire that you might have saw in the news not too long ago when the service station right y yeah yeah so that's from there and then uh the last picture there is our amulance working at a stone parket we're airlifting a patient out for trauma so overall looking at the budget our biggest increase is that looking for more manpower um I feel
068every time I'm up here I'm asking for more men um it doesn't happen every year I I don't want people to think it does happen every year uh the last time we added a position was in January of 23 when we added the depuy's position that has been a great resource for the department but the actual last time we hired a firefighter on to shift to increase shift load was back in January of 2020 and just as comparison that year we did 22 just a little over 2200 calls so we're doing over 2000 2800 now so our calls are increasing how else does that impact us well we're seeing multiple calls calls just they aren't laid out nice and even we clear one go to another one so 1,15 times we had two two or
069more calls going on in the last year 313 times we had three or more calls going on at the same time four times we had 71 calls going on and 24 times we we get five or more calls all occurring at the same time so when we're get to that number we're not handling the calls we're calling outside Mutual Aid uh people are getting delayed responses the other increase we're seeing is medical calls uh as you saw 67% of our calls are medical based so when we transport a patient today we're finding a lot more patients don't want to go to Metro West Medical Framingham they go Newton Welsley uh today went into Boston I think already once the yeah to the bi I mean so when that ambulance goes to thebi when you're looking
070at a crew of six those two have gone close to two hours out of the shift so that's really impacting us we're relying on off duty people to come back and today's world we're not finding that that's I mean call departments in a town like here don't exist anymore you not you don't see the back feed I mean when I came came on 20 years ago there was 20 people at the door when you called we're lucky if we pull in one or two now so looking at the budget again this this page here is all the Personnel Services the biggest increases on this page are related to hiring the four people so as we've talked that's our Dream request that's it's really what we need but I we know it's a burden to the
071town but um looking over a few of the line items that are show up as a little bigger there uh 51300 there's the recalls again that's that's trying to call back people back filling shifts if the ambulance goes out um if we send both the anes out we we tried to bring back in we always try to have at least three members in the station for any call that can occur so we're even when we get to that five we've tried calling people in sometimes we get them sometimes we don't uh 51310 is vacation that is all adding on the new firefighters uh 51 320 sick and personal time that one's probably been it that's based on averages uh the hardest thing is it's to judge how many people are going to be out sick
072this year we never know um we do drop the first one but we back fill from there on that's where it it gets us and I always have to backfill the duty officer um we've also founded a struggle since covid um people have been told you get a sniffle you don't feel right don't come in so it's it's it's increased I think over the the time um that line item also does include a little personal time for the new firefighters again uh the last one on that page is uh the holiday 51420 and that is adding in the four firefighters all of these have a little contractual increase to this year's increase to the contract and any questions on the personal yeah maybe just I know we I we talked about this before but there's
073a threshold right where you have so many calls and we're basically empty right we have no extra capacity if those is it two Crews or three crews are out at the same time what is that number depends depends on first call I mean if first call is a chimy fire you're not going to have anyone at the station for for the medical that comes in yeah so that Mutual Aid when people come over I guess what is the cost of the town on that so mutual Aid does not have a cost but okay we reciprocate back too so yeah so your cost does come back to you it does yeah because we give to them and then we're back filling those days uh maintenance this is our purchase of services and equipment again our biggest
074cost here or cost of Labor repair work um overall cost of supplies so on the maintenance contracts that that covers things such as our A dispatch software the maintenance cost as the police refer to I mean we our annual fees just to keep those that software running and support to it that also includes keeping our trucks certified so the pumps on the trucks have to get certified every year to make sure they follow nfba guidelines um we have we also have re required medical equipment that needs to be serviced so under our state license to have a an ambulance we have to certify that our equipment is checked annually such as the monitor we such a vital piece of equipment we have to have someone come in test it every year sign off that everything's
075within calibration um that includes our stretchers the all the equipment for lifting inside the ambulances and the other increased item really there is uh 54700 and that's EMS supplies a lot of that again is the supplies that we're using and everything today is disposable nothing's reusable those days of reusing stuff is gone which is a good thing if you think about it but it does increase all your costs and just medical supplies themselves I think the T the price tag is over the past couple of years has really increased a lot anyy questions on any of that stuff I guess I had a question I noticed here that we're going down in equipment and then a previous page also going down in training so so training I just I it's because it's average based um
076we're also doing a little bit online too so that's kind of saved a little bit on the overtime um I actually glad you brought a purchase of equipment so the reason that's going down a little bit we bumped it last year 40 huh yeah so I think it was so we we brought it up to get a grant and we actually were awarded a grant this past year for a million dollars to replace our seba our breathing apparatus so that was with town of South bro town of Hopkin and and Ashland but that covered our match to it so we built it into there knowing we had a good chance of getting the Grant and again this year we're actually shooting for another Grant under that same line item for to replace our turnout gear
077which is has 10year life and it's coming up on the 10 years okay so for the training though you're not it's not less training no it's we'll say it's different well it also helps having uh the captain's now working days yeah where before I was paying him to come in on overtime to do all the training he can actually be on all the hit all the groups so it's reducing it a bit what's the rate we currently charge for an ambulance pickup drop off how is that being built is it competitive it's it's it's it's compared Statewide we've we've done it it's all comparable to other towns okay um again the biggest problem is it comes down to Medicare I knew you going to say that yep y yeah I mean I I have the
078act the numbers here are Medicare accounts for between Medicare and Medicaid almost half of what we collect in Revenue so yeah mhm and that that's our biggest impact so a lot of people who see the the tax bill go holy crap this is cost to me but it's a lot of that money we don't see right that number so about 50% of that revenue is Medicare Medicaid versus what we can build an insurance yeah I mean to be exact it's probably like in the I'm going to say in the 40s it's not quite 50 but it's Clos y okay related to that I think when you talked about the mutual Aid do I recall also that sort of disproportionate with with hollist our helping of Holliston we are we do actually provide ALS support to
079Holliston right now but we actually started bilding that I think almost a year and a half two years ago now yep so we do have Revenue coming into that to reimburse us so we we get roughly about the Medicaid payment from them every time we go to them okay which it's brought in some money to us it's at least it's supporting our supplies too and stuff like that where before it was a we weren't getting anything to when the ambulance goes out the only person that can Bill a patient is the the ambulance that actually transport you mhm so in Holliston we actually provide the paramedics they don't have paramedics so our paramedics get in their ambulance provide all the care but it where it's physically in their truck by law they're the only ones
080that can build that's what it was so now we're building Holliston for that service interesting okay please continue that's it I think that's it yeah so the only last thing I do is I have a little shout out to somebody so at the new public safety building we moved the fire pole from the old Main Street fire station into the new building we put it in the corner of the building and we researched some help from Ed har who built us a staircase so the kids can actually go to the top stair and actually slide down the pole that's awesome nice job Ed and that was all his design and he built it all are those dations did you carve those yourself or I figured out a way to cast them to mold them okay
081yeah no it's a awesome job thank you awesome jobed thank you it was a lot of fun oh nice job Ed we're good yeah thank you thank you Chief thank you appreciate it this is this is Doug's favorite night of the year I know it used to know don't let Doug fool you looking forward to trying this out speed here don't let Doug fool you he loves this stuff the big difference between DW is we have hand outs thanks yeah thank you thank you like let's go hi everybody I'll make this brief tonight um thank you for having us I have Becca Navaro with me uh Becca started with the town uh back sometime around July I think and uh she's a civil engineer and uh her main uh uh job is to support the
082water and sewer department and uh she's made a significant difference uh positive difference ever since she's gotten there and uh uh anyway she's been terrific and all this stuff so it's I think she's to be she has already proven to be a game changer for us especially in the water and sewer side of things um so what we did is we took the annual report and we just these are just the cliff notes and all this stuff so uh many details are not included in this which is uh probably good news to you um so uh let's see so all right so the overview so the DPW uh consists of uh the general fund and the Enterprise fund a bunch of different different departments uh water sewer rubbish recycling Highway Cemetery parks and trees athletic
083fields uh storm water uh facilities and uh we also have the administration to to kind of administer everything but uh you know is is pretty much where we do the uh uh the bill processing and permit process and things like that all right um uh so on the general fund side of things um so like I said I'm not going to focus on the Enterprise I don't know if I said it but we're not going to focus on the Enterprise side of things tonight um so just on the general fund so that's the DPW admin the highway department uh snow and ice um street lights fuel Cemetery parks and trees and um facilities all right uh so a quick summary um so the proposal overall if you add them all up together we're looking at
0842 2,769 232 so right now we're looking at uh a request of a 16% increase and as you can see in red um under Cemetery parks and trees that's where the big ticket item is and I'll get into that a little more as we go um so PW admin um so over the course of last year one of our key members uh was out on medical leave for uh for the majority of the year and so pretty much the the DPW Administration the staff itself um took care of a lot of his responsibilities by committee um and also some other areas so uh it's a it's a we have a couple senior clerks in there that are very good at what they do um and then of course Roy out in the field helping a
085lot with a lot of the stuff the field calls to help get us through the year as well uh let's see so on this one here the the the the 10,000 we have a $10,000 increase in the salaries and that's mainly because of the Union contracts obligations um same with longevity INF fringes um so on the highway side so we have six full-time employees over there um see if you have any information here so this this is pretty much the the gives you an idea the the the the amount of work that would they do over there so as far as the work orders and all this stuff so in FY 204 looking at uh 200 so far we' had 200 work order request in the last 6 months or so compared to uh FY
08623 they're 385 so we're pretty much online so looking at somewhere around 400 for the whole year and then the pothole report reported the crack seals the amount number of gallons as far as townwide goes and all this stuff very exciting stuff um let's see uh Highway budget so there are no major uh request a lot of it most of it is based on Union uh negotiations uh contract negotiations um if you go down to uh contracted Services which is uh 5245 we're looking at um it's only a $7,000 increase but uh so over the course of last year we've had a lot of lot of activity with the weather with u rainstorms and wind storms a lot of tree damage things like that so um I don't know it's just tree work itself is
087very expensive um it's something we really can't control um so let's see anything else important there uh not really and the highway budget continues um so you'll see at the bottom we have training uh looking for an additional $4,000 uh for next year and the the main the driving force behind that is for CDL training for um the commercial vehicles um and it's something I'm working with with Katherine HR director and with Michael on trying to figure this one out it is harder and harder to find uh new employees that actually have their uh CDL Class B um the rules have all changed um I looked into it over the weekend as far as going to a class just for one person it's it costs over $5,000 to get your class B now uh not
088too long ago we could do all the training in-house uh but the feds have changed the rules and all that so I put a request in there for $4,000 and I know it's not $5,000 but it's because the the difference comes from other other departments as other budgets as well um snow and ice uh let's see indicator so so looking at four or five uh plowable snow storms a year so far we've had two um so this one here so for this year uh currently I think we've already spent close to $400,000 this year um salt prices are about the same um it's it's more uh anyway salt price is the same one of those storms was you know had to be I don't know close to 18 hours as far as having the contractors
089on so um and then the rates continue to go up just to get uh private contractors to work here in ashin um street lights this is something out of our control uh utility expenses we you see an $11,000 increase based on current uh costs um fuel it looks like we're in good shape here we're not increasing increase at all here that's for an increase um Cemetery parks and trees so as everybody knows there been many projects over the years and the number of properties continue to increase every year and these properties need to be maintained so we're if I feel that we're pushing the current staff uh to the breaking point uh there's five of them there's it says four up top for full-time employees but there's actually five five because uh this department also
090takes care of the the uh the school Fields so there's a total of five of them that take care of all these properties here so once again I'm working with Michael trying to find ways we can um provide the maintenance for all of these properties moving forward um you know it it could be a combination of hiring um additional employees or uh farming some of the work out um we haven't quite got there yet I've had several conversations with the staff on what they would like to do as far as what sh what could be farmed out and so on and so forth but um as you can see it's a long list um you know then eventually this dog park is going to come online the Valentine property I'm sure is going to be
091a weekly type of thing Cadillac Park I'm not sure right there the level of Maintenance that's going to be needed uh the downtown project with all the new plantings uh The Corner Spot so on and so forth um let's see um so this one here so so here's the actual budget itself and then this we also so up at the top that's where the $100,000 is if we request if if we were able to uh come up with two more new employees um and then there's also the line below that it's the parks and wreck department for an additional $100,000 and so we already have the wreck as everybody knows with Kelly rund so this would be the parks and this is more for basically managing the field rental program and the school schedule as
092well so uh it's something uh Becca was able to say it so much better to me earlier today on why and all this stuff but it's uh it's many communities around us already have a parks and wck department and it's something where we actually generate revenue from and it's it's uh maybe it's time to actually pay uh put the right people in place as far as managing it and all this stuff and maybe increase the revenue that comes out of it um let's see so Doug pause right there I guess the $100,000 ask for the new Department I guess what does that actually cover is it people that would be people that that's more Administration okay yeah talking one two people I'd say it's two people yeah yeah it's seven days a week you know
093a lot of night hours and weekends so would any of the field maintenance be part of that department or would that be truly just managing who can use it management itself really I think the DPW would continue to do the actual maintenance of you know the grass cutting and all all that stuff so this is more of the managing bookings Billings um disputes things like that yeah policies there's a there's a lot to it um okay so then contracted services so that's another option was contracted services for $50 ,000 you say we were able to find a landscaping company to come in take some of these properties off our hands where we would still manage these contractor these landscaping companies but they would actually do the work themselves um and the tree shrubs replacement the
094reason that number is so high is these trees that were just planted out here on Main Street um we're they're they're not I mean we're talking $2 to $4,000 each I mean they're very expensive trees so if we ever had to replace any of these trees so it's it's a big number but um anyways that's that's where the 24,000 came from those trees are expensive um on the facility side of things so facilities so we basically have two full-time employees and this is another area that has been developing over the years um with all the uh it it's like Evolution or whatever that this whole this facilities department and all this stuff I mean we've come a long ways in the last 20 years or so um so we basically have Jeff and Marley so
095Jeff handles a lot of the maintenance stuff with the HVAC the plumbing the electrical and so on and so forth Marley does the cleaning and she also oversees the cleaning services um so and as as you all know we just added the public safety building to this which was a whole whole new level as far as facilities goes um so on this one so facilities so permanent positions based on salaries a minor increase uh being proposed um purchase of services that another minor increase this this is all based on actual um utility expenses out of our out of our control uh that to see an increase of uh of uh 37,000 there almost $38,000 contracted Services uh pretty much seeing like a 2% increase across the board in hbac electrical things like that um and
096miscellaneous supplies based on actual you know uh with the public safety building coming online this year we did try to uh put in enough funds to cover it this year but we were we were off a little bit but um anyway so that's pretty much it um I mean there's a lot more obviously but that was kind of just the cliff notes of on the general fund Department of Public Works I miss anything Becca all right good questions for Doug sounds like we need a Park and Recreation Department hey do you want to pull the microphone over oh sorry yeah sounds like we need a Parks and Recreation Department yeah I I I think so um right now we handle the DPW staff handles the bookings and the scheduling and then these miscellaneous things come
097up on the weekends or at night um and a lot of the bookings they do actually are for the school department and some of it's private but it's kind of a tough marriage you know as far as those type of services occurring at the DPW I'm not saying between the DPW and the school that's uh but as far as having something in place Kelly run so we have this new software we're using called myre and Kelly Run is I mean she's a master at it she's awesome at it but uh in the meantime we're still using School dude which is uh a little tricky uh to figure out and all this stuff so Patty will end up doing a lot of the booking herself when the customers call in instead of the customers actually figuring
098it out themselves and being able to to uh maneuver through the the school dude software but um and then the billing the pro the whole program itself needs to go to the next level I me we're running into situation where people don't pay us and so what we do is we just don't let them book the next year um the policies are all in draft form still since 2015 uh it's a major major undertaking it's a major commitment um we do the best we can with this I mean I actually have do the trash after the Thanksgiving Day game this year you know there's nobody else there so um Ashlin it's you know like Michael said I mean it's a desired Community now look at look at the cost of the houses and all this
099stuff and it's and all these cities and towns around us have a parks and wreck department it's like Ashlin it's time for Ashlin to to get there hopefully hopefully I you know and this isn't doesn't feel like the right year to be asking for this with all this you know negative stuff going on with the you know the economy you know yeah yeah I know don't volunteer yourself to be cut yeah yeah yeah so any anyways it's it would it would be nice to I think Ashlin yeah no I agree Doug I think yeah I I've seen it firsthand some of those challenges with scheduling of the school Fields yeah and I think I mentioned this last year my wife was a scheduling coordinator for youth lacrosse and right and she' love you working with
100Patty and Patty's very responsive and you go going above and beyond because let's face it this is her night job right kind of the scheduling and the Staffing but but I think there's opportunity there like you said to number one make sure people pay right right and pay on time and I think that was one of the things is we wouldn't get a bill till like months months later you know what I mean it's like I don't remember what I booked you know what I mean yep um I guess maybe a question along with that I don't know if this is you Michael but you know it seems like you know this is tied into some of the revenue that goes to the fields fund right Enterprise fund I guess is there a chance that
101some of this could be funded via the Enterprise fund you know if if at least part of the position or how have you thought about that yeah there's always a chance um you know it's I mean the need for a parks and W department has been there for years but really the the planning for this is just kind of in its nent stages and um you know like we're starting with you know a couple of of people that doesn't necessarily mean that the structure that's going to be the be all endall structure of things but yeah I mean it makes sense if we're going to take on the athletic fields that you know the athletic uh field revolve or Enterprise fund becomes a source of uh Revenue okay but just to clarify right now there
102is nothing planned in the 25 budget from a revenue perspective from a revenue perspective no no okay get back um any other questions for Doug I don't have any Doug thank you though all right I have a comment yes I've mentioned this to Doug before and I mentioned it to Mike last time um I travel around a lot in in my occupation you know i' sometimes many times towns away and I was coming back and I've noticed that the roads in Ashland when this a snowstorm are much better conditioned than the surrounding towns one big storm I came back from Welsley and I'm driving down Route 16 to WS I'm going about 30 miles an hour because it's the fast as sh could go I get into natic and it's down to about 25 I
103get in sh I'm going about 15 miles an hour and I come over in the ashle in line and the roads are clear there it's like didn't nothing happened to all and I think the spent 400k well they do a good job they do a real good job especially compared to the other towns surrounding towns and it's it's keeps the keeps the road safe in in uh dangerous situations you know and those guys do a good job and they're out all night long you know working they do a good job yeah there's a handful of guys down there that are really good and dedicated and they get it and you know they've been around for 20 years with us and it's like automatic to them so but yeah I really appreciate that yeah it was
104true yeah it's very impressive able to get the schools open when other towns have a right right 100% true yeah we like open schools it's good or bad depending on who you are I guess we can change that all right thanks dog thanks thank you appreciate it I mean that's really our presentations for tonight I don't know if you have um any other questions or any other thoughts I mean we can talk about next steps if you want to yeah I I'm just curious you know I don't I don't have the numbers in front of me I don't know if you do but if we let's say did a level budget from last year would revenues even cover that this year would you still be at deficit or no yeah we'd still be at a
105deficit yeah level funded yep no increases which well with no increases no we would be we would be okay what do you mean yeah if you're saying like School in town There's No increases at all I'm saying even like even contractual increases like just level from last year's budget pure dollarwise schol yeah everything everything possible that you're still out of deficit yeah yeah I mean it's it's not the most ideal position to be in for sure and I think you know part of um part of Britney and and my job is to find solutions to these problems and um that's one of the things that you know we're good at I mean I say that in all you're going to get out your Band-Aids and duct tape and you're going to pull together for 25
106right yeah about 26 27 28 right I mean and you know it's funny a resident not too long ago two or three weeks ago basically said you know Mike you guys are too good at your job like like you need to let people feel pain uh to understand kind of what the long-term prognosis is of the situation that we're in and that's just not the way we're built um like if we see problems that we feel like it's our job and and we're paid to to fix it but part of my job is also to let you know like the overall Financial condition of the town and once you start looking at onetime revenues to start plugging gaps you're going down a slippery slope right now one of the things I didn't say is that
107next year we should get a couple of new developments online um so 100 Chestnut Street um and then hopefully 501 pwn Street which is a 120 unit you say next year you mean fiscal 26 next fiscal year yeah next fiscal year yeah you know and that will provide a big injection of Revenue but then you get the push against um adding residential you know that's that's not a popular thing especially dense multif family developments um well I think we've all we've discussed in committee meetings we can't kick the can forever right and uh certainly that's the first thing I thought of when you started talking about one time Revenue that's usually the uh the beginning of you know us starting to kind of